All's Fair In Love And War
by LittleMewLugia
Summary: The AllSpark has decided to change Sam into a femme. With a new era of peace looming, Sam tentatively welcomes courting would-be suitors. Barricade decides to try and court the new femme along with all the others, but old emnities remain between them. Could an old Decepticon custom be the answer, or will it only make things worse?
1. Chapter 1

Summary: The AllSpark has decided to change Sam into a femme. With a new era of peace looming, Sam tentatively welcomes courting would-be suitors. Barricade decides to try and court the new femme along with all the others, but old emnities remain between them. Could an old Decepticon custom be the answer, or will it only make things worse?

Continuity: Movieverse AU.

Rating: T/M for intimacy.

Disclaimer: Transformers and all canon characters is and remains the property of Hasbro/Paramount and I gain no monetary gain. No copyright infringement is intended. However, the idea of Barricade as a composer and a musician is my idea, and I request it not be used by others without permission from myself.

A/N: A request fic for Rian Moreu, who has been very helpful to me. I hope you enjoy this, Rian!

All's Fair In Love And War.

Chapter One.

As Sam backed away from him warily, Barricade wished, not for the first time, that his and Sam's first meeting had not been so aggressive and negative. He knew he had only himself to blame, he had just treated it like any other battle, using violence and intimidation on the enemy in a quest to secure the prize. But the battle lines had now been re-drawn, and the battle itself had been redefined. It was a battle that confused Barricade, and had turned some emnities and alliances on their head. Although Autobots could still be considered enemies, humans were no longer really participating in this particular battle, although befriending some might be beneficial in his case.

The enemy was now any other mech, the weapons were words and gestures, and the prize – well, now, the prize in this particular battle would be Sam herself. If the human-male-turned-Cybertronian-Femme could overcome her distrust of the Decepticon frontliner, and considering their history, it was a very big and doubtful if. And it was, unfortunately, Barricade's problem to solve.

"I'm not going to hurt you, Sam, there is no need to back away," Barricade said, flinching himself at the rough voice he now had, due to a lack of singing training and battle damage to his vocal processor, which had been replaced, at least piecemeal, three times since the war began.

The human-turned-femme stopped backing away, watching Barricade warily from big, too-frightened bright blue optics. Barricade extended one large hand towards her, again regretting that Sam's perception was of his having claws, causing her to shy back. It was true that Barricade had had his claws lengthened and sharpened for battle, but his first claws had been installed for plucking the strings of his instrument. It was something that Barricade wished he knew he had the time to explain to Sam, but the first dates were only as long as the femme decided, and Sam had chosen the shortest period available of a human hour to speak to Barricade.

With the AllSpark gone, and Sam the only femme known to exist, all others being known to have been destroyed or MIA, she was very popular. She was pretty much the only way new Cybertronians could be enSparked. All of the surviving defective sparklings that the AllSpark had created in its time on Earth

had now been located and brought to one of the Cybertronian Bases on Earth. None were in a position to make any decisions for themselves, all were undergoing intensive therapy and training, to learn to live peacefully with humans or other Cybertronians, and all were mechs.

All expected members of both factions had arrived, and in fact splinter groups of both factions (who were against or suspicious of the peace agreement) had formed, causing headaches for the two main factions and the humans they were at treaty with. Barricade had almost joined the 'New Decepticons', as the splinter called itself, but even he saw no point in continuing the battle. He supposed that even hardened veterans like himself could become battle fatigued.

His attention, momentarily sidetracked, was brought squarely back to bear on Sam as he felt her briefly touch the finger tips of his hand with her own before quickly snatching it back. He mentally bit back the impulse to grab at her, part from battle training, part from impatience, and left his hand where it was.

"The claws were originally for playing a musical instrument, but adapted for battle when war broke out," Barricade said patiently. "Perhaps I can tell you about my life before the war, when the name I had then was synonymous with musical excellence. On Cybertron, my name then was as well known as Mozart or Beethoven is to humans."

This was no idle boast, for hundreds of years was nothing to a Cybertronian, who could live for many hundreds of thousands of years. Even the youngest known Autobot, Bumblebee, was older than the entire human species.

For Sam, however, having been born a human and having been comfortable with the idea of a lifespan lasting mere decades, it was enough to break her nervous silence.

"You – you're a composer?" she asked. "Nobody said anything about it to me."

"They probably didn't know," Barricade said. "My entry into the war was sudden and not exactly planned by me. I did give a different name upon joining the Decepticons, for I considered my life as a warrior completely separate from my life as a musician."

"You haven't played since the start of the war?" Sam asked.

"Not the way I used to," Barricade said. "I still practice, so my skills are not dulled, but not intensively, and I have not composed since I became involved in the war."

"I – I think I'd like to hear you play some time?" Sam said, laying her hand on Barricade's arm, and again Barricade had to stop himself from grabbing Sam and pulling her towards him.

He inclined his head, half shuttering his optics, and said "Then I shall practice sometime, and then I can play some music for you, both my own, and that of some of our other well-known artists." He paused, as he checked his internal chronometer. "And with that, our time together is, regrettably, at an end. My hour is up. When can I see you again, Sam? Remember, you decided to keep a diary in your head, as your new Cybertronian processors are far more reliable than your organic, human brain ever could be."

Barricade remembered Ratchet saying he was both amused and relieved that Sam had greater difficulty with his species change than his gender swap. Amused, because Sam's reaction to recalling he was no longer human could be quite funny, but relieved because some humans had such attitudes about their gender, or were so attached to it, that the change could have been much more disorientating for Sam, and it could have taken vorns to get her comfortable enough to accept her new gender. In the meantime, there was no guarantee whatsoever that the mechs would have held off asking her for interface or sparklings, which could have made things worse. As it was, Sam had freaked out for about an orn, and then seemed to come out of recharge with the attitude "if live gives you crude oil, make energon" and had joked that his parents had always wanted a daughter, so he'd better start learning how to be one.

Sam looked momentarily confused, and then said, "Oh yeah, I forgot," and Barricade joined Sam in laughing at the unintentional pun. Then Sam checked her mental diary and said "Same again in six weeks – um, that is, three orns?" He looked apologetic. "I'm all booked up till then."

Barricade knew that this wasn't all dates, Sam still had a lot of learning to do, from basic self-maintainance to recent Cybertronian history, time to herself, and more introspection and adaptation. In spite of this knowledge, he inwardly growled at the delay. Outwardly, however, he simply nodded again and said "Whenever you are next able to fit me in, I would be grateful. I shall practice so I can play you something when we next meet."

"I'd like that," Sam said, but Barricade noticed that as he moved to open the door, Sam appeared to relax, just a tiny bit. She still wasn't comfortable around him, and Barricade wondered if she ever would be, and if so, was there a way he could speed the process up. He decided he'd spend the rest of that day looking in the archived information of Cybertron for answers.

Many of the arrivals to Earth had knowledge – cultural, scientific, medical and historical – that might be otherwise lost, and it was Ironhide and Ratchet, with Wheeljack's help, who had created an archive storage system, where the relevant information could be stored on the archive for anybody to access. The idea was that anybody could contribute, and the knowledge would be shared amongst all the Cybertronians. Barricade himself had contributed to it, both with some Decepticon relevant history, plus some musical knowledge, popular themes, and history of relevant Cybertronians in music. The latter he had submitted anonymously, though he'd heard murmurings that many suspected Soundwave of being the source. If anyone knew the truth, Barricade thought it would be Soundwave, but Soundwave was so far saying nothing to anyone, a fact Barricade was glad of.

It was Wheeljack, Red Alert, First Aid, and Silverbolt who had brought the greatest amount of knowledge to Earth, having retrieved several of the quadrillion terabyte memory cores each from some of the computer systems from Iacon's central library before leaving the planet. These were still being translated and the information deposited as and when it was extracted, so the knowledge was growing all the time, so much so that all their craftmechs were engaged in creating new memory banks for the current archive, which would otherwise be full to capacity very quickly. Barricade decided to see if any relevant information on pre-AllSpark customs, such as dating, might have been recovered and added. He had to admit there was a good chance that that sort of information was amongst the volume of knowledge lost for good, but he could hope.

oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo

oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo

Barricade finished trawling through the available information in the archive as he was informed his session was over. Due to anticipated demand, each Cybertronian was only permitted to book a joor at a time. They could, once one joor was completed, book another immediately after if there was space, but Barricade felt he had enough to be going on with.

Surprisingly, not only had some of the pre-AllSpark cultural information survived, but it had also been sorted and filed onto the archive. Some of the relevant information he was looking for was in there as well, but also some interesting historical information and references.

It seemed that the Autobot/Decepticon divide had existed long before the current conflict, and that, in fact, the Cybertronian species had originally been split into thirteen different tribes, an interesting fact considering that the oldest legends and myths of Cybertron spoke of thirteen original Primes who were the leaders of their races. There was no mention of whether any of the other tribes had been wiped out, assimilated into others, or just amalgamated under one name, but it seemed Autobots and Decepticons were the two tribe names that survived, although there was a suggestion that Seekers had once enjoyed their own separate faction. What Barricade found interesting was that although little of ancient Autobot courtship had survived, an ancient Decepticon custom was actually documented fairly well, not least because the use of it had been the beginning of Cybertron's First Golden Age.

In the custom, obviously derived from pre-AllSpark times when a lack of femmes could mean a tribe dying out, a Decepticon would steal a suitable partner from another tribe. The custom dictated that the captive would not be harmed or threatened in any way, but instead be treated as an honoured guest, albeit without the freedom to leave for almost two human weeks. The kidnapper would contact the tribe to inform them that if their advances failed, the captive would be returned after an orn. This was how long the custom granted the captor to win the affections of their captive. It was, due to the shortage of femmes, usually a femme who was the captive, but the high-profile historical use of the custom had involved a Decepticon femme faction leader capturing an Autobot Prime. No one knew exactly what she had done to convince the Prime to partner up with her, but the First Golden Age was the result, and the first long-time peace the otherwise warring species were to enjoy.

Barricade wondered if this could be an option with Sam. He knew more than one place he could creep off to, do up as a very comfortable cell, and then kidnap her, issuing the customary declaration via com to the Autobot Base's communications net. He decided he'd check the places out, but not that night. That night, he decided he needed to practice. His practice till then had been minimal, just enough to keep his musical skills alive, for being a frontliner had been more important at the time than being a musician. But with Sam's sudden interest, it seemed he needed to concentrate on being a musician again.


	2. Chapter 2

All's Fair In Love And War.

Chapter Two.

Back in his room, Barricade drew out the case containing his instrument. He almost reverently opened the case, for this was not an instrument he had used in some time.

He had practised for a joor or so on his usual practice instrument, a relatively new one, purchased just before the conflict that ended up on Earth, but the one he gazed upon now was far, far older, and dated from the First Golden Age, millennia ago.

The pieces nestled in the spaces made for them, light chasing in rainbows and shimmers off its highly polished edges and surfaces. This was his performance instrument, and it was made by a master craftsmech for a master musician. It had been gifted to Barricade by his teacher when he began to regularly outperform his teacher on the instrument Barricade had himself crafted. "If you can perform that way on an instrument of your own creation, think how you can perform on an instrument made by one who has a lifetime's experience in making them," his teacher had said as he'd slid the case over to him.

Barricade had tried to refuse it, but his teacher had insisted, and in the end, Barricade had taken it. Its crafter had been dead by then, his teacher had told him, and so had the mech it was originally made for, killed in the conflict that marked the end of the First Golden Age. It had passed since then, his teacher told him, from teacher to student just as he was now passing it on. Barricade wondered if he might have a student one day to pass it on to, then broke his revere and began removing the pieces to slot them together as per design.

His fingers brushed against the one imperfection in the instrument and anger at the careless Autobot who had trodden on this piece flared up briefly. Fortunately, it was not a flaw that would be reflected in the music made, but Barricade had to feel it every time he held it, for even the most careful repair had left a hairline scar, and knowing it was there spoiled some of the joy he felt when playing it.

He dismissed the anger from his mind, the Autobot in question had been on the end of Barricade's wrath that day, and had not survived the experience. Instead he began to carefully tune the instrument, one string or key at a time. He had not used it in so long that the simple act of tuning broke one key and two strings, but such parts were replaceable because they were so easily broken, and the act of rekeying and restringing, and then retuning, calmed him from the agitation he felt over the break. Eventually, every key and string played true, and he began picking out a simple popular Cybertronian tune to warm his fingers up.

He played several tunes on the instrument, some simple slow tunes, others quick and martial, others that started slowly but then swelled into an exultation, or an exciting climax. He played several pieces by Cybertron's most well known composers, several more that were, he felt, oddly obscure, because they were masterworks. He played a couple of his own compositions, finished with a medley of snippets from all he'd played, till he was overeager on a chord, and all the strings broke. It was a rude awakening from his musical trance, and as he carefully took the strings off and examined them, he saw the breaks were too clean to be snapped, it looked more like they had been cut. He took the instrument apart to store it once again in its case, and reflected that if he was going to get as carried away as he had been then, as he had often become before the recent conflict had started, he should get the edges of his claws blunted again.

oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo

oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo

Barricade examined the five sites he had thought of when first thinking of using the ancient Decepticon custom with Sam. Two were no longer an option, as humans were using them, or were too close, whilst a third was not able to be made as secure as Barricade would need, so that one was out, too. He was just making relevant adaptations to one of the two that remained suitable when he had a surprise com from Sam.

"Um, hi Barricade, I've been given a free evening so I though if you wanted to come over, you could? If you can't I understand, cause it's kind of short notice and I can ask someone else-" He got no further because Barricade cut him off.

"I don't have any plans this evening, so I'd like to. I'll bring my instrument. When do you want to meet?"

"In about two hours?" Sam asked.

"I'll be there," Barricade said, calculating that he could do a bit more here first, then head off for a quick polish before picking up his instrument and going to Sam's room. It seemed that things were looking up.

oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo

oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo

Barricade had decided, for two reasons, to take his usual practice instrument with him when he went to see Sam. Firstly, it did not need any pre-assembly, and secondly, it was relatively plain compared to his special instrument. Tonight's date would likely only take an hour, an hour Barricade did not want eaten up by Sam admiring and asking questions about the ornate decorations on his performance piece. When he had more time with Sam, it would be a pleasure to explain them and answer her questions, but that time was not now.

He sent a polite com to announce his presence, and walked in slowly, settling himself in one of the chairs that had been assembled by humans to support the Cybertronian frame in a seated position. He allowed Sam to approach at her own pace. She was still wary, he noticed, but sat in a chair not too far away.

"I brought my instrument," he told her, handing her the instrument, which she examined for a moment, looking at him for permission and upon receiving it, touching the strings and keys with slender, shapely digits.

"I have never seen anything like it on Earth, I cannot imagine how it's played," Sam said. "You have keys and strings? I know human pianos have keys to activate hammers to strike the strings, but this doesn't look like the same thing at all.

"Then allow me to show you, and demonstrate how having keys and strings to cope with is worth the extra effort, although it is less of a problem for Cybertronians then it would be for a human. We can separate our processors to focus on more than one task at a time, I understand some humans do not find it so easy to-" he swiftly accessed the Internet for the human word, found it and added it after just a short pause "-multitask."

Sam gave an odd laugh.

"Most humans would say that men don't multitask," Sam said. "Well, human men anyway." Barricade quickly searched the Internet to find that not only was this true, but the subject was the butt of many jokes. He chuckled accordingly.

"Perhaps it is true of most human males, but you will find many differences between the human and Cybertronian versions of the genders, this being one of them. All Cybertronians, regardless of their gender, can isolate one or more group of processors to do separate tasks."

He had risen while talking, and quietly circled behind Sam, to her increasing disquiet. Noticing her discomfort, he quickly crouched, and placed the instrument on her legs, gently seizing her hands and placing them in the starting positions on the instrument. He sat behind her, using his hands to guide hers over the strings to tease a chord from them. As she realised his intentions, the stiffness of alarm began to leave her frame.

"This instrument is one that is easy to learn, but takes time to master. Do you want to learn, and find out about being able to multitask?"

Sam nodded, in the human fashion, and Barricade set to teaching Sam the placement of fingers on keys and strings.

oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo

oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo

Barricade found teaching Sam to play quite a pleasant experience. She was a quick study and had taken to the instrument easily. He was particularly glad he'd thought of it when Sam agreed to make room for an hour of musical instrument practice under Barricade's tutelage every seventh day. He used the final fifteen minutes of the date to play some of his music to Sam, who seemed enthralled by Barricade's performance.

Sam was jolted out of her reverie by a com.

"Um, Barricade, my next date's waiting?" Sam said gently, and Barricade nodded, finished the musical piece, and picked up his instrument.

"Until next week, Sam, or sooner if you wish," he said, and walked towards the door. As it opened, he almost walked straight into Starscream.

"Excuse me please, Barricade, but Sam and I have some time booked," Starscream said, pleasantly enough to Barricade, but with a narrowing of the eyes and swift obscene gesture with one hand towards Barricade that Sam did not see but that Barricade did. In any other circumstances, the gesture would have been just cause for a fight, but with Sam watching, and not seeing or understanding the gesture, Barricade would have been apparently attacking Starscream without provocation, and quite possibly making himself less attractive in Sam's optics as a result. Swallowing his anger, Barricade smiled back at the Seeker.

"Of course, Starscream, none of us want to monopolise her, but make sure she has some time to herself, we don't want her style cramped by us and our petty little rivalries now, do we?" He decided to keep the weekly lessons Sam had agreed to to himself for now. Starscream would find out soon enough, and although he was sure he'd not be the one to inform the narcissistic Seeker, Barricade hoped he'd be present to see Starscream's reaction to the news.

He was a little less pleased to see Starscream cradling Sam in his arms, with hers around his neck, as he took her for a flight around and over the Autobot Base. Competing with an adversary who could offer flight was a hard proposition. He was glad he was readying the rooms for the traditional kidnap-proposal, perhaps having Sam kept away from Starscream for an orn would improve his chances some, and he could show that although he couldn't outfly a Seeker, couldn't fly at all, even, he could outsmart one.

With that thought, he decided that he could spend the time he now had on either watching Starscream smarm his way into Sam's affections, or to work on making the building he had chosen more comfortable for them both. He decided on the latter action, transforming into car form and driving randomly around the city to put off any possible surveillance, before heading for his chosen site by a roundabout route. Not that he seriously thought he was being tailed, but old habits die hard, particularly ones that had, in the past, saved his life more than once.


	3. Chapter 3

All's Fair In Love And War.

Chapter Three.

A/N: 1 joor=6.5 hours.

To see what I am doing in my stories, please go to my profile, which I will be updating frequently.

Sam said "Thank you, Starscream, for the flight and stuff," but noticed the Seeker seemed disappointed.

"Goodbye hug? Till next time?" he asked.

"Sorry, Starscream, you've been hugging me in the air, and it wouldn't be fair, I don't hug the others," Sam said. Starscream's wings and shoulders drooped, but Sam was, by now, getting used to the Seeker's subtle emotional appeals. Ratchet had told him how touch-oriented Seekers were, but that made it easier to give mixed signals. Sam wanted no ambiguity, didn't want Starscream thinking he had an advantage over any other, when Sam wasn't sure if she wanted to choose any of her many potential suitors at the moment. It would be unfair, she felt, to do anything that might lead any of them on. She had once been on the male side of human courtship, had seen how some human females would tease, and deliberately lead on some of the men, and how some of the men would try to pressurise the females. She had decided she didn't want to be that kind of girl, or date that kind of mech.

"Let me know when you next want to meet," Starscream said. Sam nodded, absentmindedly deciding that she would have to let all the Cybertronians know that she was not planning on settling permanently with any of them. She was well aware that she was the only known femme, had queried Ratchet extensively on the closest equivalent the Cybertronians had to genetics. Ratchet had set her mind at rest, assuring Sam that close relations suffered no damaging effects from reproducing, as humans did. All Spark-signatures differed on several levels, except for the rare twin events, and even they often differed in personality. However, if the offspring of two of Sam's own unions were to reproduce, there would be no risk of defects.

Technically, even full siblings on Cybertron could reproduce, it was neither dangerous for the progeny, nor illegal in the optics of the law, although in actuality most Cybertronians chose to bond or interface with individuals from outside their own family. What humans would term 'incest' was not taboo, or even discouraged on Cybertron, it just so happened that most younglings sought out people they hadn't grown up knowing for the purpose of interfacing (or rarely, reproduction). In fact, Ratchet went on to state that as the majority of Cybertronians whom had been Sparked in the last few million years had been created by the AllSpark, most unions were unknowingly incestuous. Sam preferred not to dwell on that. The AllSpark had used the last of it's power to turn her into what she was, and as far as they knew, she was all they had, so it was a moot point anyway.

As Starscream left, shoulders slumped, Sam's thoughts returned to Barricade. Since she'd found out about his musical ability, Sam had discovered a side to Barricade she had not suspected existed. Sensitive. Diligent. Focused. So much more approachable in their shared appreciation of the music and it's propagation via the instrument Barricade was teaching her to play. It made him almost more – human was the only word Sam could use to describe Barricade-the-musician. "Approachable" came a very close second. Despite their unfortunate first introduction to each other, Sam was beginning to wonder if, with this hidden side to Barricade now laid bare for his scrutiny, she could risk trusting the frontliner. She shook his head. Too soon. Too early.

"Sam, Soundwave will be here in a breem, will you be ready, or will you need us to stall?" Ratchet's com derailed her train of thought.

"No, that's fine, I'll be ready," Sam said, checking with a glance that there was energon in the dispensers, and that clean drinking cubes were available. She grabbed a cloth she kept for the purpose, to buff off any obvious scuffs, always a risk when Seekers were involved. Having checked in the full-length mirror she insisted on in her room, and having brushed the odd scuff off, she sent Ratchet the signal that she was ready for Soundwave to come in.

oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo

Soundwave held Sam's hands gently and fixed his optics on Sam's, but he was not as interested in Sam as the others were, or at least not for the same reason.

Soundwave already had Laserbeak, Frenzy, Ratbat, Ravage and Rumble to look after. Technically, none of them were sparklings, for Ratbat was an adult Spark-transfer, but had reverted to infancy, Ravage was fully functional but still needed a certain amount of orders to follow, and the other three were battle-damaged Sparks he had chosen to rehabilitate. Technically, they were not sparklings, but some of them were as good as, for they needed some of the same type of and level of care. It was something that Soundwave would never admit to, but he was fond of trying to rehabilitate damaged Sparks back to functionality. No, Soundwave did not want, nor need, another sparkling, but he had pretended an interest, for it was Sam, and how he - no, she - was reacting to her own transition, and change in status, and gender, and species, that Soundwave was interested in.

Soundwave had never admitted to another Cybertronian, except Megatron, that he was capable of reading the minds of other Cybertronians. He could also read the minds of humans, too, he had discovered upon landing, but he often found their thoughts too mundane to follow for long.

Sam was different, although now she was no longer a human, Soundwave did not know whether her transformation was a factor in that. As she was newly Cybertronian, it could be that her mind was more ordered, but less guarded, then that of a human, but whatever the reason, Soundwave found her mind easy to read and simple to interpret.

Barricade featured heavily in Sam's under-the-surface thoughts, seemingly at random, but Soundwave could see that some of Sam's thoughts, concerns, sympathies, and admirations, lay with the Decepticon frontliner.

Although Soundwave had not told him he could, it seemed that Barricade was no stranger to the concept of mind reading by Soundwave. Soundwave suspected that Barricade was able to compartmentalise his mind in such a way that his most private thoughts were hidden, even from Soundwave, something that the Communications Specialist admired as much as it irked him. However, the thoughts of Sam the Cybertronian were wide open, and Soundwave was surprised at the direction of Sam's sympathies, as much as he admired them.

It just made his path both easier and more apparent to Soundwave. It wash easier to push a mind further along a path it was already considering than to change it's opinions entirely. No specialist, no matter how skilled, could convince someone to open a way of communicating if the mind was violently opposed to the person. Soundwave was grateful that Sam's mind was still malleable in that respect. Starscream was definitely a no-no, but Barricade would be well suited to his purpose. The communications specialist made small talk with Sam, while his mind encouraged Sam's subconscious thoughts to travel along paths it had already briefly considered.

It was not really that hard: even thoughts would leave trails, trails that Soundwave could quietly widen and make more obvious, make ideas more palatable then they might otherwise have been. Soundwave took full advantage, for it was suited to his deeper purpose that Sam be more attracted to Barricade than one of the Seekers.

Plus Starscream was the main Seeker suitor, obviously having convinced his wing brothers to let him have a go at courting Sam-the-femme-Cybertronian first, and Soundwave got personal satisfaction from denying the arrogant Trine Leader what he assumed he was entiltled to.

He spoke to Sam about how she was doing, courteously queried and questioned the femme, and then arranged another date, before heading out to find and have a conversation with Barricade. Soundwave thought that the two would be good for each other.

oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo

Barricade was surprised when Soundwave asked to speak to him, but was gratified to find that he favoured him over Starscream in efforts to win Sam over. Soundwave had assured Barricade that his interest in Sam was more academic, at least for now, and that he supported Barricade's own quest to woo Sam. It gave Barricade some comfort to know this, his plans were likely to irritate every other prospective suitor, but having started off with a disadvantage, Barricade thought he deserved a chance to balance it with a possible one-off advantage.

He had spent time preparing both suitable locations for what he planned, it was never a bad idea to have another bolt hole in case the first was discovered, and now he just needed to add some finishing touches. He thought that he'd need another week, and then things would be ready. Not that he planned to set his plans into motion just yet, there was still time to continue prepping Sam with music lessons and maybe another date. He did seem to be making a little progress with her, and rushing things could damage the progress he had made. The less time he spent calming her and convincing her he meant her no harm, the more time he would have for intensive wooing. His disguise meant he could get the required fuel to refine into energon, and he was able to use his disguise form to obtain a few other things from the humans he could utilise.

On the other hand, he didn't want to leave it too late, Starscream was still a threat to his hopes, but Barricade was trusting Soundwave to keep his word that he would delay Starscream when and where he could.

oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo

Sam didn't see any of her would-be suitors, or not for dates, at any rate, because she still had lessons to learn, and it seemed that almost all the Autobots wanted to teach her a little of what they knew.

Weapons practice with Ironhide, basic repairs and first aid with Ratchet, hologram generation lessons with Hound, recon duty with Bumblebee and Cliffjumper, even spying and evasion tactics with Mirage, which did not involve going invisible. How to tail someone without being spotted, checking to see if you'd picked up a tail yourself, and techniques on how to lose one if you did. Which is how, several days after the last music lesson, Sam became aware that she had unexpectedly acquired a tail while just driving around for pleasure, and the tail's name was Barricade.

She briefly thought of testing Mirage's techniques for shaking loose someone following her, but she was curious as to Barricade's intentions, and although she was fairly certain Barricade was tailing her, she decided to check using Mirage's techniques, which mainly involved driving a reasonably complicated but pointless route, and seeing if her unexpected follower stayed following her. After completing a short figure of eight around a couple of blocks, she had her confirmation. She pulled into a side street and waited for Barricade just around the corner, checking for humans before switching to robot form.

Barricade actually seemed surprised when he turned the corner to find Sam waiting for him, but merely drew to a stop and converted to robot form himself.

"Why are you following me?" Sam asked, and Barricade noticed that although Sam's voice sounded calm enough, her fists were clenched, half her armour was deployed, and a quick scan confirmed several of her weapons systems were powered up and ready for use. She was obviously still nervous, and he ran a string of Cybertronian cuss words through his processors for an astrosecond at his carelessness at being spotted.

"I was admiring you from afar, plus checking that you would remain safe. You are a sparkling by our standards, for all that you were adult by yours, and still have that adult attitude, which why we do court you. However, your chronological age still makes you technically a sparkling, which makes many of us feel protective towards you. I would keep checking, I am sure I am not the only one who does this. As it happens, I have something to show you when you next have a free half-joor, but I will wait until you have ascertained the veracity of my claims. What I have been working on is for your optics only, and I would prefer that you are not followed."

"Okay, I guess. Does it have something to do with the music?" Sam asked.

"It definitely has something to do with the music," Barricade said. "On that subject, I believe we have a lesson scheduled in a few day's time, how about you meet me on the edge of town, it can be incorporated into your lesson, that is, if you can avoid being followed."

"I guess," Sam said, a little uncertainly.

"Sam, you have nothing to fear from me any more, so please, power down your weapons. I give my word on my Spark and on my music that I mean you no harm."

"Maybe later, Barricade, trust needs to be earned," Sam said, and went back into her vehicle form. "I hear humans around the corner, so I suggest we move off."

Barricade had heard them too, and converted back to vehicle form himself, before reversing out of the road and heading off.

Sam followed a few moments later, and took a circuitous route back to the Autobot Base, and by the time she got back, she had already, by observing with even more care, spotted both Bumblebee and Ironhide trying to hide in the traffic.

Next time she went out, she decided, she'd test Mirage's techniques for avoiding picking up a tail, and then for losing one she had, even if she couldn't see one.

Forewarned was forearmed, and anyway, they couldn't complain if she was practicing what she'd been taught.


	4. Chapter 4

All's Fair In Love And War.

Chapter Four.

A/N: Sam with cassettes scene requested by : hope this delivers!

Over the next few weeks, Sam, through careful observation, found several of the Autobots were, indeed, following her, at various distances, and midway through the second week she started to diligently follow Mirage's advice about how to shake loose someone following her. By the time she was done, she figured the only possible tail she had was Mirage himself, and then only if he was invisible.

Her next date with Soundwave had, to her surprise, been with all of his Cassettes in attendance, and Soundwave had explained that he thought it would be beneficial for Sam to meet and get to know them. She was nervous about this, for her experiences with both Frenzy and Laserbeak had been none too pleasant, memorable for all the wrong reasons, but they were either very forgiving, didn't associate her robot form with her original human form, or had been told to behave around her by Soundwave.

The Cassettes all seemed to be playful, and to Sam's surprise, the non-bipeds seemed to like having their stomachs scratched, and behind their heads, something Sam had tried when they had all come over and shown interest in her, Ravage actually lying on his side and making a noise that sounded like a well-tuned car engine's purr.

As she was used to dogs, she had scratched Ravage's stomach before realising it might seem a bit patronising, but Ravage's reaction had been quite obviously an expression of pleasure, and then before she knew what was going on, Laserbeak and Buzzsaw, two of Soundwave's three flying-type Cassettes, had pushed their heads under his hands, one each, and made it clear that they wanted scratched too.

She had decided to experiment with the scratch location, and found the three all liked their stomachs and behind the heads scratched, whereas Frenzy and Rumble preferred her to keep her hands to herself, but had no trouble climbing up and around her own frame. It was alarming at first, but not uncomfortable, and once she was sure they weren't going to hurt her or themselves, she was able to cope with it. In the end, she had Frenzy and Rumble perched on her back and peering over a shoulder each as she scratched one of the other three in turn, and Soundwave showed her how Ratbat liked his stomach stroked and his wings gently flexed and stretched out.

To her surprise a few days later, when expecting a date with Starscream, it was Soundwave who turned up at her door.

"Starscream-busy. Soundwave-attend-instead. Does-Sam-agree-to-change?" He asked.

"Well, that sucks, but I guess being Decepticon Leader has other responsibilities he has to deal with," Sam said. "Can't be helped, I guess, so sure, come in."

Soundwave entered, releasing his Cassettes, and choosing not to inform Sam that Starscream was attending to the two weeks' worth of built-up paperwork he had presented Starscream with just a half-hour earlier, much of it needing to be read through, corrected, signed and returned in the next couple of days. There was a brief scuffle between the Cassettes over who would go where and who would get Sam's attention first, but this time Sam was ready for them, and managed to give them equal time, even pulling Frenzy and Rumble over her shoulders before tickling them a little before making way for the next little Cassette who wanted to play or just be stroked. Sam soon came to know the Cassettes' more playful sides, once she got over worrying at how rough they seemed to be. Being metal, she reflected, had it's advantages, as she wrestled with Rumble while Ratbat landed on her back.

"Hey, two on one, no fair!" She complained, rolling onto her back to dislodge Ratbat while also avoiding Frenzy's flying leap. She managed to push Rumble off, only for Ravage to land on her chest and take his place, grabbing one wrist in his mouth and holding on. Sam had heard that those jaws could crumple metal if Ravage wanted to, so although she couldn't pull her wrist free, the fact it was undamaged and not painful meant that Ravage was still being playful. She was about to roll onto her front when Frenzy and Rumble came at her from both sides and began tickling her mercilessly. As she shrieked and writhed, she reflected that maybe doing that to them had been a mistake. She heard Soundwave chuckle.

"Frenzy-Rumble-Ravage fast-learners," Soundwave noted. He himself had not been idle during the dates, once again giving Sam's mind 'nudges' to make her feelings about Barricade less ambiguous and more positive. Soundwave was aware of Barricade's plans to use the ancient Decepticon custom, and although it was not in his interest for Barricade to do so, he couldn't really stop it either. He hoped that by encouraging Sam to be more comfortable around Barricade, that Barricade would change his mind.

oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo

When Barricade attended for her music lesson two weeks later, a lesson that was now firmly set, and took place later in the evening, they went out after she let Ironhide know.

The weekly music lessons were known about by all now, including Starscream, who had spent one of his dates with Sam sulking so badly about it that Sam hoped to delay the next date, after having to endure the most uncomfortable and silent flight to date.

She and Barricade first headed to the Lookout, where they checked for followers, before Barricade took her on another circuitous route to shake loose the two they had spotted, and any they hadn't, before Barricade took her to a deserted building in the outskirts of town. When she saw the isolated location, Sam got nervous, and hoped that maybe Mirage had followed them invisibly.

"Come in, and I'll get the instruments out. I sometimes use this place to practice, it has good acoustics," Barricade said, leading the way.

"Instruments?" Sam asked, catching the plural as she followed Barricade in, and then stopped in awe as the sound echoed back to her, remarkably clear. "Wow," she said. Barricade chuckled, and the building also took that sound and magnified and repeated it.

"Yes, Sam, instruments, for today I will show you and play for you on my best performance instrument. Maybe I will even allow you to try it."

He guided Sam to the centre of the room, and took two empty cubes and a canister of energon from his subspace storage, putting them aside for later. Then he took out the usual practice instrument, handing it to Sam, and, after deliberately setting it wrong, instructed Sam to tune it. Sam, used to this behaviour, bent her head to do so. Barricade watched for a few moments, and then removed the case with his own performance instrument in it, before opening it and fitting the parts together.

Sam finished tuning the practice instrument, looking up at Barricade, but when she saw Barricade's instrument, her vents hitched as she gave a gentle gasp of awe. Barricade's performance instrument was as beautiful as it was functional. Each key was shaded, and a slightly different hue from those next to it, and the frame was moulded as much for beauty as for function and comfort. It too shone, as the light hit the surface it flowed up and over it as if it were liquid, scintillating and running over the beautiful item almost hypnotically. Barricade looked up, and cradled the instrument loosely in his arms.

"Just play what you have learned as practice, Sam, and then I shall play for you," he said. "This is what I wished to show you, my performance instrument. I rarely play for others at all, and when I do, it is usually on the one you are holding."

Sam nodded, and tore her optics off the beautiful thing in Barricade's arms, going over the tunes and exercises Barricade had painstakingly taught her. He occasionally nodded, and once shook his head, but did not otherwise speak until Sam had finished.

"You faltered on one of the music pieces, but I am sure with practice you will improve. You are picking up this art quickly, and your progress is very good. You are learning quickly, and growing in skill. May I play for you, Sam? On an instrument such as this, itself a masterpiece, the music played takes on a new dimension."

"Yes please," Sam said, and sat back as Barricade tuned the instrument and began to play.

She was transfixed from the first few notes, as Barricade ran through the piece of music Sam had and made it sound almost completely different. Then he played another piece of music, that moved from gentle and slow to swift and joyous, his optics glancing up once or twice to capture her own in their gaze. He kept the optic contact with her as he ran the tune back down to a slow but still-cheerful tune that ended in a small uplift at the end, almost like a question. He lowered the instrument slightly, and nodded to her.

"That is my newest composition, and it was inspired by and written for you," he told her.

Sam was stunned, "For-for me?" She repeated. Barricade nodded.

"Your interest in my playing, plus your desire to hear my music has helped me compose for the first time in millions of years. I have always found joy in music, and to compose that tune was like a release," he told the stunned femme.

Before Sam could respond any further, Barricade lifted his instrument again, and began playing snatches of other tunes, some light and playful, some sounding dark and portentous, some that sounded something like military marches, and others that sounded like an announcement of great things. Barricade himself seemed caught up in the moment, his optics half-shuttered, his hands touching the strings and keys with almost a lover's caress, gentle yet confident in his movements. Sam was so caught up in the music that when Barricade ran his fingers up the strings in an ascending series and then stilled them abruptly with his hand to end the music, Sam physically jolted as she came back to herself.

"That - that was amazing!" Sam said, and then startled as Barricade held the instrument out towards her. She reached out as if to take it, and then stopped herself, shaking her head.

"I can't, Barricade, it is a beautiful thing, but I could never do it justice at the level I am at. Maybe, if I ever reach a level where I feel I could play it properly, like you did, perhaps I might reconsider, but right now, it is not something for such as I."

As Barricade took the instrument back, Sam thought she saw - approval? Relief? - in Barricade's optics but it was gone as soon as she'd noticed it. Barricade opened the case, carefully taking the instrument apart and putting it away, before he closed the case and put it back in his subspace. He retrieved the energon and cubes from where he had placed it earlier, and poured them a cube each,which they drank in near silence, each lost in their own thoughts.

Then, Barricade indicated for Sam to pick up the practice instrument.

"Please play through the longer piece of music another few times, so you get used to the position your fingers need to be in for the part you got wrong a little earlier. Then, I shall teach you a new tune."

"Okay," Sam said, picking up the instrument, and playing the tune a little slower as she checked her fingering and positioning, and then played it through again, concentrating on getting the right notes at the right time and tempo the second time.

Barricade had her repeat it another three times to be sure she had got it, which Sam found a bit annoying, but he was mollified when Barricade commed her a new, more complex piece of music that Sam knew should test her. On this one she expected she would get some bits wrong, as there were some awkward finger swaps and tempo changes throughout the piece. She realised Barricade had not been making her repeat the other piece due to a lack of confidence in her ability, but was making sure she was confident in that piece before putting this new piece of music onto her list.

Barricade took the instrument from Sam, and played the piece of music through twice, once slow, and once fast, before handing the instrument back and letting Sam have a go. She played through it once, slowly, and a second time a bit faster, with Barricade assisting, and then a third time at the correct speed by herself. She could hear that there was definitely room for improvement, she flubbed a couple of the more awkward changes, but lowered the instrument from playing position and handed it back.

"I think maybe I'd better head back, Barricade, I managed to get an extra hour for the music practice with you, but the time is nearly up, and I've got a couple of hours of weapons practice with Ironhide," Sam said apologetically. "I think we'd better be getting back. But same time again next week? We could even come out here again, the acoustics of this place are great!"

"That is the main reason I practice here," Barricade told her. "That, and it's secluded enough that I am unlikely to be unexpectedly disturbed. After all, unless someone has a reason to come out here, nobody will come in and find me, and I take pains to make sure I am not followed."

Sam looked at Barricade nervously, but Barricade seemed not to notice, as he carefully subspaced the practice instrument. Then Barricade got to his feet and stooped, holding his hands out to Sam, who recoiled slightly. Barricade sighed.

"I just wish to help you up from the floor, Sam, I am not going to hurt you, and I don't know how I can make that clear to you." Sam felt a little chastened by Barricade's statement, and reached out her hands. Barricade took them firmly but gently in his own, and pulled Sam to her feet with an ease and economy of movement that Sam envied. Then he released her hands and stepped back, and to Sam's surprise, dipped down into a shallow bow.

"Sam, I wish to request a favour from you, and hope that I am not being too forward with you. I have noticed that when Starscream is flying with you, because he needs to hold you, he often ends up embracing you. I ask, that in the name of equality, I am permitted one five-second long mutual embrace. To clarify, I would like to put my arms around your body as you put your arms around my neck, as you do when being carried by Starscream, for one incidence lasting exactly five seconds. Although I see the neccessity, as you need to be secure, I think it only fair that I am permitted the same sort of contact. May I ask this of you, please?"

Sam thought for a few seconds before nodding in agreement. It was true that when flying with Sam, Starscream enjoyed a closer contact with her than any of her other suitors. It was not, Sam thought, an unreasonable request, and she slowly nodded.

"Okay, Barricade, but you understand that if I permit this from you, in the name of fairness and equality, I must permit others the same contact?" Barricade nodded, after all, fair was fair. He opened his arms in invitation, spreading them wide, and Sam smiled, took two steps forwards, and loosely linked her arms about Barricade's neck.

Barricade closed his own arms about the slender femme, his hands touching Sam's back, one sliding up towards her shoulders, the other down to her waist and then across. He thought he knew where what he sought was located, but had to be certain, and sure enough, as his hand slid up to her shoulder, he felt the round ridged structure that was usually hidden under her back and shoulder armour, the one that, with Sam's arms raised above her own head to clasp about Barricade's neck, was exposed as the movement lifted the armour upwards. As he closed his arms and hands around her and gave her an affectionate squeeze, his right index finger pressed hard on the reset relay situated on her lower right shoulder, and without a sound, Sam sagged in the bigger mech's arms.

Knowing that she would likely be out for at least a third of a joor, he set her gently down and moved out, checking with his sensors for the presence of humans, of which there were one or two, and then set it to a different frequency to check for Spark energy, and found none but his own and Sam's. Moving back into the building, he carefully gathered Sam's limp form into his arms, and, dulling his armour to shades of grey, slipped off into the night.

A/N: The reset relay is G1 canon, it is mentioned in the Season 2 episode "Attack of the Autobots."


	5. Chapter 5

All's Fair In Love And War.

Chapter Five.

Barricade watched Sam as the femme began showing signs of rousing, for he had wondered for some time and at some length what would be the best reception for Sam, and had even checked out some of the information about humans on the Internet. Sam had spent most of her life and formative years as a human, and as such, Barricade felt this needed to be taken into account. He had found that food and drink were often high on a human's immediate priority list, so had provided them.

Clothes, as Cybertronians (even Sam) typically did not wear them, and time was short, were impractical and pretty much impossible to produce under the circumstances, but he had managed to stitch together several fleece throws to make a blanket which he had spread over her, hoping it might provide some small comfort as she woke, even psychologically.

However, he had found that there was one particular thing he could do that he was well qualified to do, that the Internet seemed to suggest was calming, and may possibly set the tone, and the mood, for the rest of the day. As Sam stirred and began to groan, Barricade lifted the practice instrument, and began to play, a slow, calm piece of music that was one of his own personal favourites.

oOooOooOooOooOooOooOooOooOooOooOooOooOooOooOooOooOooOooOooOooOooOooOo

oOooOooOooOooOooOooOooOooOooOooOooOooOooOooOooOooOooOooOooOooOooOooOo

Sam's waking was slow, and she first heard a piece of music playing. She stretched lazily, opening her optics to see Barricade. Her memories of him hugging her - and then of blacking out - returned, and she sat up and swept the room with her optics. They dilated as they took in the single exit that was closed, blocked by the mech in front of her, and the unfamiliar surroundings. She grabbed the fleece at her waist, raising it like a flimsy shield to her neck as she used her legs and other hand to scramble backwards, further away from Barricade, who although he glanced up at her every few seconds, did not stare at her or move, except to continue playing his instrument.

Sam tried to call for help, wanting Bumblebee or Optimus Prime, preferably with Ratchet and Ironhide for heavy duty back-up, but it did not take her long to discover that she could not send any messages, and it stood to reason that she probably could not receive any either. Her inbox, usually receiving date requests from one or two mechs a day was conspicuously unavailable, reinforcing the suspicion that her whole communications array had been disabled. She briefly cursed having turned off the GPS tracking function herself, to avoid being followed, but then decided if it had been on, Barricade would have disabled that too if it had been required. She looked up and watched the black and white mech warily.

After a few minutes, Sam seemed to work out that Barricade wasn't planning on moving any closer, but neither was he showing any signs of moving further away, or out of the way of the exit. His music slowed and became more simple, and in the end he was simply running his hand over the strings in a rhythmic strum, his optics carefully watching Sam. As Sam cautiously stood, Barricade stopped playing, but left his hands on the strings; Sam, who had tensed, noticed Barricade was not giving any signs of standing or moving from his position, and relaxed. An awkward silence ensued, which Barricade soon broke.

"Sam, I give you my word on my instrument, on the light of my Spark, and on my honour that I intend you no harm," he said, his voice low but clear.

"Then why did you knock me out? Where am I? Will you let me go?" Sam asked. She noticed the musician's optics were on the fleece blanket, and pulled it closer. Barricade noticed, shuttered his optics, and sighed air through his vents.

"I am following a very old Decepticon courting custom, Sam, which involves kidnapping the object of my affections. I am bound by the custom to release you, if that is your wish, but only after a set period of time, which it is not customary to declare until the time in question has passed. Where you are is somewhere safe, and you should know that the custom dictates that you are under my protection for that duration, and beyond, should we both agree."

"So, I am your prisoner?" Sam asked.

"Under the custom, you are accorded the status of an honoured guest, but as you are not permitted to leave until after a set time, perhaps honoured prisoner is a more accurate term," Barricade said.

Sam briefly worried about that. A 'set time' sounded promising, but given how long Cybertronians lived, that could mean he intended to keep her for thousands of years.

"How long?" she asked, not sure at all if Barricade would answer. "Keeping me dependant on you for everything is the perfect situation to create what humans call 'Stockholm syndrome', because it puts me at a psychological disadvantage. Look it up on the internet if you don't believe me."

Barricade did have to look Sam's reference up to understand her concern, but once he did, he had a ready answer.

"You are correct to be concerned, but there is a Cybertronian version. Enough is known about it to know that it takes longer for the Cybertronian version than the human version to develop. The timescale permitted is shorter than this."

"But I was raised human, Barricade, and then changed by the AllSpark to become one of you. How do you know my human upbringing will not change the progression of Cybertronian Stockholm Syndrome in me to the human version?" Sam asked. She was, he noticed, still tense, still nervous, but it was, he assumed, to be expected. There were few records on the response of those held by the custom that had not been embellished over time, so he had to work on this with no guidance from the surviving records.

Barricade had, after a swift search of his processors, no assurance to the contrary for the human turned Cybertronian, but decided he would have to take a calculated risk.

"Your concerns are quite valid, for your situation has never occurred before, and is unlikely to ever occur again. In light of this, I am going to take a risk, and break with tradition to tell you the length of time I have to convince you to take me as a mate, to convince you that I am preferable to any other, and to allow me to have one or more sparklings with you. The tradition may not survive the current situation, or may have to change to still be relevant, but the current version I am using tells me I have an orn - that is just over 13 human days - to convince you of my worthiness as a potential mate. It is not usual to inform you of the time I am allotted. And I do not know if knowing how long you have under custom will delay a human version of Stockholm Syndrome, but I hope being able to calculate an end date will make a difference. Understand that under the rules of the custom, I must provide, within reason, everything you request, except for your liberty. I must also protect you from any harm or threat while you are with me, just as if you were a Sparkling I was charged with the care of if her Creator was absent."

Sam sat down and put her arms around her legs, hugging them in a very human fashion, and Barricade could see that the femme was still unsettled with the situation. He wondered if showing her what was available would help, and put his instrument down. He removed a nearby tarpaulin to reveal a large box, and he reached into it to withdraw a flask of energon and two cubes.

He quickly poured some of the energon into both cubes, but Sam tensed as soon as the Decepticon frontliner took a step forward. He stopped, took a mouthful from each cube to show Sam the energon was not drugged, and then stepped forward again. He frowned as he saw Sam still back off, realised how threatening the scowl must have seemed, and cleared his faceplates before very slowly advancing a few steps, ignoring the fearful motions the femme made. While still out of arms' reach, he placed one cube on the floor, and then retreated almost to the door, before sitting down and taking a drink from his own cube.

Sam stopped her frantic scared movements, but it was a couple of minutes before she cautiously moved forwards, grabbing her own cube and scuttling back. Once she was back at the other end of the room, she looked at him over her cube, which she held like a shield. He chuckled internally at the thought of being drenched with the contents of the cube if he were to approach, but kept his amusement off his faceplates and out of his voice, guessing it would be misinterpreted by the skittish femme.

"Sam, I have given you my word on two of the most important things to me that I mean you no harm. Why are you still terrified?"

At this, Sam seemed to find her tongue.

"Because you are a Decepticon, so I don't know if your promise is at all sincere. Because I am without any backup, or ways to get it, thanks to you. Because I am completely at your mercy, reliant on your good will, which might make me agree to something I'm not happy with so I don't upset you. Because you've separated me from my family and my support network while putting me under an increased stress, one which might convince me, again, to agree to something because I'm scared of what might happen if I don't. I don't know about Cybertronians in that situation, but I have heard about it with humans, and in human society, putting someone in that situation isn't called "love" at least not by most. In that situation, it's called "control", and that's most often seen as an abusive relationship."

"So, you do still have some fire in you, at least," Barricade said, his processors going over every word and her still-human body language, analysing the situation while simultaneously checking the human Internet. "It seems odd that your media is full of stories where a woman is under pressure to pursue a relationship, and in the end she decides to do so, and it's actually love, so why is your media saying one thing about it if the situation is actually the opposite? Why is it that so many plots of human romance films, if they happened in real life, would be abusive, and why are they so popular amongst your former kind?"

Sam sighed. "There is more than one answer to that question, Barricade, but the simplest one is probably buried in your question. The films are not real life, they are fantasy. They are idealised relationships that seem romantic at first glance, but if you look deeper, you'd see the flaws. Most human women in my experience - not that I have a lot, admittedly, - might love the idea of being followed about, bombarded with gifts and letters and proclamations of undying love, or someone who will do multiple things to prove their love to the person they pursue, but in real life it would become scary or creepy very quickly, and would be classed as harassment by the law. The media you refer to, Barricade, _is_ fantasy, and humans enjoy a story that's not complicated, that has someone overcoming odds and triumphing over adversity, and love a happy ending, but in the end, it's not real. People don't think through what media presents them with, and that's why there are films that centre around abusive relationships, but it's not obvious that's what they are. Most people think of abuse as physical violence, but being controlled, or observed, and having every move scrutinised and analysed, having someone, for example, finding out where you live and work so they can send flowers or serenade you, that would actually be really scary. And being reliant on someone else to provide everything you eat, and drink, see and hear, like you are doing with me? Well, that's scary as well."

Barricade, however, was also watching Sam's reactions, both current and earlier, and suddenly came to a realisation.

"You feel vulnerable and defenceless, don't you, Sam?" he asked. "I thought those Autobots were meant to be teaching you how to use your weapons, and when not to? But there's a big difference, Sam, between theory, and practice. Maybe if, as I suggested earlier, you were a sparkling I was looking after, I might have to take a different tack to teach you what you need to know and when in a different way?"

Sam looked a little confused, but before he could add anything else, the frontliner was on her. He hadn't given her any warning, no roar, no attacking stance, but suddenly he was pinning her to the floor, and as he flipped her over and struck the point on her shoulder he had pressed on before, Sam didn't even have time to cry out before her vision and consciousness fled.


	6. Chapter 6

All's Fair In Love And War.

Chapter Six.

Autobot Base.

Ironhide was, at first, not concerned that Sam didn't turn up on time for her weapons training that week. She had been a few minutes late for the last couple of lessons, and he was aware that not only was her schedule filling up with things she needed (or wanted) to learn about, but more and more mechs were requesting dates with her. Some of those dates were one or two offs, the mech in question just wanting to be polite, or to get to know her a little better as a person, one on one.

Optimus Prime himself had taken a couple of these, wanting Sam to get used to seeing him as a person rather than "the Prime", something Optimus was used to doing with certain members of his group. He did not want to be unapproachable by any of his Autobots, or any of the Decepticons or humans for that matter, particularly at this time of fragile peace. Rumour had it that he had even requested a half-joor each with Thrust and with Octane, both seen as potential loose cannons that could risk the fragile peace if they went off the rails.

Thrust's had ended pretty much how everybody had expected, but rumour had it that Optimus had spent a total of almost a third of a joor allowing Octane to insult, ridicule and belittle him, before saying or doing something that was still unknown to himself, Ratchet, and the rest of the Base. Whatever Optimus had said or done, it had persuaded Octane to toe the line and even refrain from verbally taunting the human members of the Base crew. Of course the somewhat unstable mech still had his moments, but he was nowhere near the high risk he had been when he had first sought them out,

What _did_ irk Ironhide after fifteen minutes was that he had heard nothing at all from Sam. She was usually good at least about contacting him to apologise if she was late, and let him know she would be on her way. He sent her a message, and then put some of the time on his hands to good use by limbering up and doing a few practice moves himself. When an hour had gone by with no sound or sight of the new femme, Ironhide pinged her a com, laced with heavy sarcasm that conveyed the message in no uncertain terms that such tardiness and lack of manners towards her elders would not be permitted or excused in the future.

When Ironhide received back a message that his message was, this time, unable to be received, he began to get concerned. The "New Decepticons" had not recently been causing trouble, but that didn't mean they hadn't been plotting something, and could very well be behind their femme's lack of communication. He called Optimus and Soundwave, advised them both he was heading for Optimus' office, and requested their presence on a matter of the utmost importance.

It was Soundwave, with his unique skill set, who discovered that Sam was not just offline, but that any form of communications through her inbuilt systems was unavailable. This suggested direct and deliberate sabotage, and Optimus made a Base-wide announcement, asking for any and all help in retrieving Sam, and instructed any who saw him to apprehend, and if neccessary, capture Barricade. He hoped that the black and white mech, who had showed exemplary behaviour since the truce had been announced, was not responsible, but was not enough of a fool to think that he could not, or would not, be the culprit.

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Sam regained consciousness to find herself on her back, her limbs splayed and pinioned by Barricade, and her first instinct was to scream and struggle. However, Barricade was a trained hand to hand combatant, and his hold stayed firm.

"Stop that noise, it won't do any good right here and now. It now becomes apparent why you are so terrified. You are, as it happens, vulnerable, but not, as you seem to think you are, completely defenceless." He got up, and she rolled to her feet.

"It seems I must be the one to show you that you are, in fact, perfectly able to defend yourself. You just need to know how. We will not start with the basics, for good reason." He paused, before speaking again.

"This is because the basics really are what you do instinctively, which is to shout, struggle, and scream. In a situation where you are not alone, that is often sufficient to draw attention to your situation. In most cases, others willing to aid being made aware that you are in need of their assistance will do the trick, but we must assume that there will be situations where you are alone, so those basics need an alternative. I will teach you how to defend yourself when there is nobody else present to render aid."

He shifted position, and Sam readied herself to dodge, so was surprised when Barricade altered his stance to one more relaxed, and nodded in satisfaction.

"That you are able to spot body language consistent with readiness or tenseness is an advantage, as most those you face will indeed give away their tension to attack with obvious body language and stance, but this is not always the case. However, even in these cases, there are usually less subtle tells, and it is these you need to learn. In order to avoid being attacked, it is generally prudent to know whether an attack is indeed imminent, and if so, when."

The next hour or so was spent with no further physical contact being made by Barricade, as he instructed Sam on optic movements, facial expression changes, the shifting of weight and the small adjustments of limbs that could signify an opponent was planning to attack. He advised her on movement, and stressed the importance of not being predictable.

"Sometimes, if fleeing, especially if you are being fired upon, you have to keep your opponent from being able to predict your movements," he explained. "Your defence pattern should only be a rough pattern, sometimes you should, for short periods, run straight between zig zagging, sometimes even run back the way you came for a few steps, or briefly stop moving at all. You may even need or want to go from robot mode to car - or the other way - while fleeing, to move faster, or provide a smaller target, or again, to avoid being predictable. You want them to _not_ know what you'll be doing next. You need to keep any opponent off balance, even if only for a few seconds, because those seconds could mean the difference between victory or defeat."

When the black and white mech jumped her again, Sam never saw it coming, but this time, Barricade swiftly got off her. She climbed to her feet with ill-disguised irritation.

"Some warning might be nice next time," she groused. "I didn't get a chance to try doing any of those things."

"We would all appreciate it, Sam, if our opponents would give us fair warning of an attack, or let us know they were going to take hostile action, but as a rule, they don't. That is why I am teaching you about the tells. Always keep checking, even in a seemingly non-hostile situation, as sometimes intents can change very quickly, or the signs of an imminent assault may only be visible for a short time. You should be watching for any slightly suspicious movements, even if a conversation seems amicable. You should try to avoid becoming distracted."

At the end of the sentence, Barricade lunged for her again, but this time Sam noticed the slight shifting of the Decepticon's weight from one foot to the other, and managed to dodge to one side, but Barricade spun and grabbed for her again. Sam had not been expecting the follow through attack, so Barricade found this easy, spinning her round and pinning her against himself to immoblise her.

"Keep moving, Sam, it's unlikely they'll make just the one grab and give up, you must keep moving, keep dodging, while still looking for the tells that will let you know which way they will come at you, and the best way is to keep space between yourself and them, assuming that you are in a situation where you cannot run. Try to circle round, keep them in sight, and work out which way they will lunge, so you can dodge."

"Right, okay, I'll keep that in mind," Sam said as Barricade released her.

"Now, Sam, I want you to run from here to the far corner of this room, and while doing so, without stopping, I want you to transform into car mode," Barricade told her.

Sam eyed the short distance warily. The room appeared to be a deserted warehouse, but while it might seem cavernous to a human, as a Cybertronian, Sam was beginning to find human proportions and dimensions a bit cramped.

"Um, okay, I'll try," she said.

Barricade sighed and indicated to Sam to stand back, and then he took two loping steps, began transforming, and for a few seconds, drove, albeit slowly, in car form. As he approached the end of the room, he transformed again, unfolding back into robot, pivoting on his foot to face Sam, who stood there staring in disbelief.

"I managed two transformations, and I mass more, and take up more room than you. I am sure you can manage at least one," Barricade stated.

"You have a few thousand years more of practice than I do," Sam muttered, and Barricade chuckled.

"Not in this particular vehicle form, but your point is taken. That's why I'm asking for just one."

Sam mouthed something unrepeatable, but took off running, and transformed into car form, but found herself heading for the back of the warehouse at too high a speed. She slammed down her brakes, but that sent her back end swinging and sliding around. She saw Barricade reach out with those strong hydraulic hands, and winced as she tensed, expecting to feel claws scrape on her chassis, but Barricade brought her easily to a halt without a single scratch, although she felt him tense as he resisted her momentum.

"Very well done, Sam, see, you managed it. I will go to the other end if the room, and then I want you to repeat what you did, but from car back to robot," Barricade told her. "We'll practice stopping as well as changing. And then, if you and I both feel up to it, we'll try a double change." Barricade went to the other end of the warehouse.

""Ready? He asked,"

"As I'll ever be," Sam said.

Barricade nodded once, and made a beckoning motion with both hands, and Sam drove slowly forwards, changing mid-way, but still crashing into Barricade, just this time both were in robot form, and they went down in a tangle of metal limbs.

"You're enjoying this, aren't you?" Sam said as they disentangled themselves. Barricade flashed a toothy grin.

"I won't deny that there are fringe benefits," Barricade admitted, "but I'll enjoy it more, for different reasons, when you can bring yourself to a stop." He walked to the other end of the room.

"Now, robot to car once again, please," he said. If Sam could have rolled her optics, she would have. She settled instead for a loud huff through her vents before she turned to obey Barricade's order.

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"Okay, Sam, you can relax for a few breems, I promise not to continue to train you until you've had your break," Barricade said. Sam did not relax, and Barricade inclined his head in approval.

Sam had managed not only to finally stop smashing into Barricade at the end of a run, but in succeeding in transforming from robot to car and back to robot, although car-robot-car had not yet been successfully achieved. Barricade thought it likely that if Sam had the room that would be available if she needed to do that particular manoeuvre, there would be no problem, it was the proximity of the warehouse walls that were making Sam hesitate to change back to car, and risk crumpling her front end against Barricade, and/or the wall at the end.

"As I think you have absorbed the lesson about not getting distracted or letting your guard down, I see no need to reinforce that by falsely suggesting a break," Barricade tried to reassure the still-jumpy femme. To emphasise his point, Barricade sat down in a position that would take him several seconds to rise from, and was relieved to see Sam drop her own guarded stance.

"Exhaustion is something else that can mean the difference between victory and defeat," Barricade said. "I am not going to sabotage my own efforts by exhausting you. While you rest, I can explain the next phase of training." He handed Sam an energon cube from a small stack he had nearby, and picked up a second for himself.

"Next phase? What's that?" Sam asked nervously.

"We must assume that at some point, you may be captured and rendered unconscious, so, on that note, you may wish to ask Ratchet to rig some protection for your reset relay upon your return, it's unfortunately in a common location and inadequately protected. However, I digress. The next phase of your training will concentrate on you not allowing your captors to be aware when you come around after being knocked out."

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"I have tried to contact Barricade, without success, but his communications are capable of receiving, which means he is ignoring me," Starscream told Optimus when they met in the courtyard, before setting out to commence a search. The Seeker's tone sounded aggrieved, but the animosity between the Seeker and the stubborn Barricade was well known throughout the Base.

"Barricade and I do not get on, so it could be it's because of who I am as opposed to not wanting to respond to anybody," he finished.

"He has not responded to Mirage, Soundwave, Frenzy or I either," Optimus replied. "Which suggests he's turned off communication notifications, or is ignoring all of us, and either is sufficient for me to suspect Sam's silence is due to something he has done or is planning to do," Optimus said.

"Barricade may be a grounder who believes actions speak louder than words, and not in a positive sense, but he has never struck me as a mech who might go against long-held society norms and taboos without some sort of trigger," Starscream said. "I do not believe that he will force Sam, but I do believe he would not be above trying to coerce her, or put ideas in her head, making him a more attractive proposition, and any or all of us less so," the Seeker clarified.

Several of the other Decepticons made sounds of agreement; Barricade might be unconventional, but was not in any way, by Decepticon standards, deviant.

"Very well, in light of this, I will make this merely a recon mission", Optimus said. "You all have Sam's and Barricade's spark frequencies registered, as provided by Ratchet?" Many flashed their headlights or send assenting comms in agreement. "May I ask you all to look for any signs of Sam or Barricade, physical or otherwise? I do not think this requires radio silence, which in itself might raise suspicions if anyone is listening in, even unbroken coded transmissions suddenly having no traffic is suspicious, but I suggest that if there are any sightings of either of them, we should report them only on this priority secure channel." he said, sending them all the code. "As we have splinters of both original factions who are still willing to fight, I feel it would be unwise to use a channel we cannot be certain is secure."

"Agreed," Starscream said. "My Seeker brothers and I will search from the air. Thrust has chosen to accompany us. Octane has said he will remain at the Base, but on standby, in case you require him to bring fuel. Knockout, Soundwave and Dead End have said they will participate in the search on the ground, if we see anything, we will let you know." He cut off the communications abruptly, before he and his wing brothers moved away from the ground based forms of Soundwave and the Autobots, before igniting their thrusters one by one, taking off in robot form, and flipping into jet form before each heading in a different direction to each other.

"Very well," Optimus said once the Seekers had departed and he could hear himself think again. "May I suggest we search in pairs? Soundwave, I would appreciate it if you would accompany me, and the rest of you find someone to partner with." There was a little bit of shuffling about in the courtyard as the rest of the searchers, both Autobot and Decepticon, paired off. When they stilled, the gates were opened by Bluestreak, one of the skeleton crew staying behind to staff the Base.

"Okay," Optimus said, checking behind that everyone had taken their vehicle mode. "Roll out!"

The assorted vehicles moved out of the Base, and as the doors closed behind them, set off, peeling off in pairs to search the immediate area.

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Sam lay perfectly still, keeping her body limp and carefully regulating her vent speed, as Barricade had advised. She was also concentrating on what she could hear, which could tell her where Barricade was in the room. A slight scuff, an almost-silent tread told her that the frontliner had moved, but as the sounds were in the same general direction, Sam did not think it was likely he had moved far.

A scape of claws against metal, and a sigh followed, with more almost-silent steps, but this time Sam could tell Barricade was circling her. Her fingers twitched involuntarily as a scrape sounded closer, and then Barricade spoke.

"If you twitch while listening, Sam, make sure to seem to "wake up" within the next five minutes, or they'll work out what you are doing and guard you closer. In this sort of situation, you want them to underestimate you, because it means they are more likely to drop their guard."

Rather than reply, Sam went through the motions of "waking up" over the next five minutes, before sitting up and looking at where Barricade was crouched patiently nearby.

"Well enough for now, Sam. So, we have gone over struggling, reading body language and situation, running, dodging and feigning unconsciousness. However, it would be best if you could actually fight as well, in case of need. I assume you know what weapons are available to you?"

"Yes, I have shoulder cannons, which I have been practicing using, and arm blades, but I still need practice with both," Sam admitted, "and Ironhide said I could have electric knuckle spikes added later if I wish."

"You can still do some serious damage with fists even without the spikes, Sam, as long as you use them properly," Barricade said. "Not like a hammer, swinging down, but like a ram, straight out. Don't intend to just hit your target, punch as if your intention is to go _through_ them. I believe Optimus Prime did just that with Bonecrusher on the freeway, hard enough to deform his cranial unit permanently, and knock an optic out of its setting."

"Ew," Sam said, although he had been told about this fight, including those very details, several weeks earlier by Ratchet.

"Again, you don't want to be in a sustained fight on your own, you should fight in order to flee, at least until you get some backup," Barricade said. "If you get in a close combat situation where you cannot use your cannons, and even the swing of your limbs is restricted, you may have to resort to using your opponents size against them, and resorting to what you might term 'dirty fighting.' As it turns out, I know how to do both, and shall be happy to pass on my skills to you."

Barricade suddenly pounced, but Sam had been watching the Decepticon's body language, and actually managed to avoid him for a few moments, before Barricade caught her by one arm and pulled her while twisting around, finishing the move by pulling Sam over his shoulder hard enough that when she landed, it was with a plating-rattling thud that would have killed Sam had she still been flesh and blood. Sam stared up in shock.

"Remember, your own small stature can also be used against you, which is why you may need to resort to dirty tricks," Barricade advised. Which is why I need to teach you the weaknesses associated with being big, and the advantages of being smaller. For although you are not as small as some, it can be a disadvantage in some ways, and a benefit in others." He paused, and then spoke again.

"You want to use your size to your advantage, and your opponents will try to use it against you."


	7. Chapter 7

All's Fair In Love And War.

Chapter Seven.

Nevada Desert, near Tranquility.

The search team had been frustrated during its search from the beginning, mainly due to trying to trace Barricade and Sam through more than one area which had seen heavy traffic. It became evident that Sam had been using the techniques taught to him by Mirage, and that Barricade was already well versed in the same techniques. It was now almost a half joor since their search had begun, and the lack of progress was upsetting everyone involved.

"Maybe I should not have taught her my techniques?" the blue and white spy had said at one point.

"You couldn't know that she'd use them against us," his search partner, Cliffjumper, had tried to soothe. "And if we'd withheld the techniques, she might have resented us, or even ended up in greater danger due to not knowing them?"

Mirage, who had expected Cliffjumper to angrily agree with him, was surprised for a few seconds, but then replied "Maybe, or maybe not?"

"That may be the case, Mirage, but sitting here second guessing and blaming yourself isn't helping," Cliffjumper replied, and this time the anger Mirage had been expecting was there. "So how about you stop beating yourself up, and tell me what you would do if you were Sam, or indeed, how you'd transport, or otherwise persuade her to go with you, if you were Barricade? What's done is done, and no amount of retrospective analysis will change that. You're the spy, Mirage, so tell me, if you were to do so, how would _you_ pull off stealing Sam from directly under our olfactory reception organs?"

"Is that an accusation, Cliffjumper?" Mirage bristled. "Because if so,-" Cliffjumper was quick to cut off the angry young mech,

"No, it's not, it's an honest question. We know Barricade is good at undercover and stealth work, and having been trained as a spy, you and he will have certain skills in common. I'm asking you not because I think you _would_ , but because with the skills you have, I think you _could_ , if you were of a mind to. What techniques or skills would you use to confound your enemies and steal her away, that Barricade would also possess? We need to work out his methods, and you might have some of the same skills he would utilise."

Before Mirage could reply, a call came in from Bumblebee on the coded channel they were given earlier.

"We think we've found a building and area where Barricade has been, and signs that he was with Sam, but scans show no sign of either of them there now," Bumblebee reported. "We were careful to keep our distance, Prowl insisted on it as soon as we saw how isolated and concealed it was, there's no spark signatures there, but there are tyre treads that match with both Sam's and Barricade's heading that way."

"Remain where you are, we will join you," Optimus said. "Everybody, these are the co-ordinates given to us by Bumblebee. I suggest we use these as a new central starting point for our search. Everyone should approach slowly, no matter what direction you're approaching from, and no matter how well concealed you think you are, and with caution, and record any spark signatures nearby, ascertain their direction of travel, and if possible, ID them visually, or by scan."

"We've already been doing that as a matter of course," Starscream replied in a tone bordering on insolence. "Just because Barricade is the prime suspect, it doesn't mean he's necessarily working alone? There's a whole other group of independent Decepticons out there, whose to say he hasn't switched his allegiance, and decided to throw his lot in with them? With the only known femme in existence in his claws as a gift, he would be welcomed with open arms."

"You said yourself, Starscream, that Barricade would not force a femme. I agree with that opinion. I also find it hard to believe he would stand by and allow another to do so. As such, I think it is far less likely he would put one in a position where it would be inevitable, and by multiple mechs," Thundercracker said.

"Unlikely as it may be, it is something we must keep in consideration," Optimus said. "Even if he is not working with them, there is a possibility he may run into them, and if their ranks are as numerous as our intelligence reports suggest, he, and thus she, could both be in serious trouble if they do happen to meet."

The searchers met, as Optimus had suggested, at the co-ordinates given, Mirage going in closer with his disrupter activated. Once he could confirm there was no sign of bugs, booby-traps, or other Cybertronians, Bumblebee, Dead End, and Cliffjumper went in too, with a real-time video link to the rest of what they were seeing.

"The tyre tracks lead almost right to the door, and then there are footprints which match them both," Bumblebee said. "It's a good-sized room, which you can tell from the echo, and how sound is magnified. There are scuff marks, patches in the dust on the ground, slight scrapes of pale blue and silver paint, and scrapes of black paint, and a little white paint too. I think it's safe to say they have been here, but how recently?"

"Recently enough for no further dust to fall, and they have visited together only the once, as there is only one set of Sam's tracks, leading in', Mirage said. "I think there's a high chance that Barricade brought Sam here for her music lesson. The marks in the dust suggested they sat for at least a short time. There are no obvious scuff marks in the dust or on the walls to suggest any struggle, but Sam's prints seem to stop here, and only Barricade's are visible here. Some seem old, but there are clearer, more recent ones too. They seem to be leading out, and then - Scrap! The floor's been scuffed up, and it looks deliberate! He must have obscured them from here. He could have struck off on foot, or headed into the tarmac. He's probably covering his tracks, Cliffjumper and I could try and see what he's covered, but it could take time."

"Do it Mirage and Cliffjumper, my trine and I, and Thrust here, will search from the air in an expanding spiral pattern," Starscream said from above. "May I suggest the rest of you with ground-based vehicle forms divide up the search area in your own way and see if the trail shows up again later? If he covered his tracks completely all the way to where he's gone, he cannot be too far, or will still be in transit. If he hasn't, he should leave tracks somewhere, which someone should pick up."

Nobody queried Starscream's giving out of orders, for Optimus had done similar earlier, it was likely the sort of thing Optimus would have ordered anyway, and there was too much at stake for petty squabbles over who was giving orders to whom. They were working as a team on this occasion, so nobody vocalised any protest.

"I have a suggested search pattern here for us on the ground. If groups of four take a wedge shaped area and check it, we can cover the most ground in the least time'" Prowl said, sending the search pattern he'd just suggested to all the participants. "As the wedge widens, the four can divide into two teams."

The Seekers flew off, and after a moment, the ground based forms split up as suggested, all going off to search a certain area in groups of four, except for Mirage and Cliffjumper, who remained behind to try and pick out any discernible track Barricade may have left in his wake, and not erased fully.

After 15 fruitless minutes, they gave up, reported they were doing so, and both went out across the desert soil, Mirage in robot form as his vehicle mode was not made for off-road travel. Both looked for telltale signs of a mech or car traversing the desert. They were heading in the same general direction as Optimus and Dead End, but by a different route.

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As Barricade lunged for her, Sam dodged, feinted one way before diving another, while dropping her shoulder to roll, and using her other hand to swipe at the exposed cables at the Police car mech's ankles. As Barricade stooped to grab her, she flicked her headlights on at full beam straight into his optics, causing the Decepticon to shy back, which gave Sam the time she needed to regain her footing. She backed up, raising her shoulder cannons, and then shouted "BANG!" Barricade threw himself to one side, and Sam lunged for him, jamming her arm against the exposed cables at his hip. "I deploy my blades and pull down," Sam described, for this was training, not real combat. She had no wish to damage Barricade for real, at least not at this point.

Barricade's response was to grab Sam's other arm and pull the small femme against him, wrapping his other hand around her wrist, and pulling it away from the leg joint, before pushing himself forwards so he collapsed atop her, pinioning her against the ground. She wasn't hurt, but the larger mech's weight effectively stopped her from moving more than her fingers and feet.

"Good moves, Sam, until that last one. Only go for lines there if you have no avenue of retreat. Unless you cut a vital line and your attacker is a lone wolf, he only has to keep you pinned down until his friends go to assist, or he calls for backup. You're trying to give yourself room to dodge, and manoeuvring to get to a position you can run from. If you come within their personal space close enough for them to grab you as I did, you are too close. Your melee blades are for emergencies only, your cannons and fists, along with your speed and unpredictability, are your best weapons in this sort of situation. Remember, your aim is to avoid becoming their captive, not inflicting injuries upon them." Sam turned to look at Barricade, glaring at him and baring her teeth, startling herself in the process. Barricade laughed and nodded.

"Anger is good, Sam, in a real combat situation, you'd be surprised what energy anger can give you if all other reserves are gone. You'd do well to fight like a Decepticon, Sam, and let your anger at your opponents fuel your drive. Your head, however, should stay in control, at least enough that you don't take foolish risks." Sam's response was part sound, part visual, and part static, and the meaning was unrepeatable, but Barricade just laughed, and said "What has Ratchet been teaching you?" Sam just shrugged as the anger drained away, and she just felt defeated. She let her shoulders slump. What was the point? She'd never get it right.

Barricade rolled off her and helped her to her feet. Seeing her demoralised expression, he reached out a hand to her shoulder.

"However, you did use your hands and shoulder cannons to get that distance, and had your hand connected with those ankle cables, I would be limping and leaking," Barricade said. "The concussive force of your cannons would have disorientated me even if they didn't hit, and I would hope in any combat situation, you would be outside, with more opportunities to run. You did do well, Sam, but as I just illustrated, one mistake can undo all the good you have done. It's my place to point these out in training, so you do not, hopefully, make them in battle." He paused, and reached into his box, withdrawing them a cube of energon each.

"We'll rest for now, Sam, and then we'll go outside, to practice in a more realistic scenario. But if I do that, I want two promises from you. Firstly, that if I give an order, you will obey it, and secondly, that you do not run for real. I am no longer seeking to court you, Sam, not for the moment anyway, I seek only to teach you to defend, and a little later, I will contact the Autobots about returning with you to their Base. I am teaching you defence to be used if needed, but do not want you possibly running into a situation where you need to use what I have taught, and even I have not checked the neighbouring areas as thoroughly as I would have liked to. I promise I will take you back to the Autobot Base in a couple of days, and will contact them to make them the same promise within the joor. Do you agree to abide by my request, and make these promises to me?"

"Yes, I promise," Sam said, meaning it. Barricade had been partly right about why she felt so very vulnerable, and under the mech's tutelage, she felt less scared and more empowered. She was no fool, and knew she still had much to learn from the Decepticon. If she did try to run, it was likely that Barricade could still catch her anyway, so would be a wasted effort. Aside from that, Sam was enjoying her lessons, and wanted to learn more.

They sat in silence for a short time, drinking their energon, and Barricade took out his instrument and played a little.

"I think we should do another music practice tonight, as a break from the combat practice. I find that getting some downtime is an important part of being combat ready when the situation demands." He stopped playing, took his instrument apart, storing it in his subspace, and then frowned.

"I think we may have to explain what we are doing to the Autobots a little sooner than I anticipated. I can hear engines outside, far away at the moment, but I think some are getting closer, and I'm guessing they are searching for you by now. I must admit that I thought I had gone far enough out to give us some more time, but I did not count on the Seekers scouting ahead. Perhaps I should have." Sam strained her audios, and thought she could hear a faint thrum.

Barricade stood, and extended a hand to Sam, who took it, and he pulled her easily to her feet.

"Let's go out and meet them, then they can see that you are unharmed. Perhaps they will help me to train you in techniques against multiple opponents?"

"I never stopped to think I might need these skills," Sam admitted. "But I can see how it's better to have them and not need them, rather than need them and not have them." Barricade nodded in approval and agreement as they walked out of the door, and turned down a short corridor. There was another, roll-up door, secured shut with a big padlock. Barricade unlocked and removed it, rolled up the metal door, which squealed in protest, and they both walked out into the open.

It was light outside now, the sun having recently risen, and Sam blinked in the sunlight. The engine noises were slightly more audible out here, and Sam could see a couple of motes on the horizon with dust clouds behind them. Perhaps it was her imagination, but they seemed to accelerate as she and Barricade moved into the open, where they could be seen. A moment later, he saw a figure spring into the air and transform, the jet vehicle form heading towards them.

"'I'll contact them, Sam, let them know you're unharmed and we won't resist them." He looked up at the approaching jet. "That's unusual, where one of the Command Trine are, the others are usually not that far behind."

Sam looked at the approaching ground forms, and would have squinted at the distance were she still human. It was desert dust that was the problem this time. Was that Optimus, silhouetted against the cloud of dust kicked up from the dry desert floor?

Barricade suddenly put a hand on her shoulder.

"Sam, transform and drive! That's not the Autobots! I believe we've just been found by the New Decepticon forces!"


	8. Chapter 8

All's Fair In Love And War.

Chapter 8.

As Barricade twisted her around and shoved her, she took his advice, running and transforming into car form, and putting her pedal right down. She was grateful now for the practice she'd had in transforming on the move, and looked in her back mirror to see what Barricade was doing.

He had transformed too, still in robot form, but with his armour raised and bristling with more weapons than she realised he possessed as he faced down the two grounders they'd seen approaching.

A shot from above, too close for comfort, refocused her attention as she jinked to one side, then recalled Barricade's instructions, stopping and reversing for a short distance before accelerating away on a diagonal. Her spark flickered as she saw more figures on the horizon approaching. It seemed she was hemmed in on at least two sides, and she was guessing the other two sides had approaching mechs on them too. The shot from above hit the ground in front of her and she swerved in a shower of dust and stones to avoid it, realising she now had a fight in 3 dimensions. The other vehicles, - and sure enough, more were approaching her from three sides now - were too close for comfort, and as she dodged another shot from her airborne assailant, she took a chance and transformed into her robot mode, throwing herself forwards and rolling, something she had learned as a human, not from Barricade.

She rolled to her feet, crouching, deployed her shoulder cannons and then let her body drop back, firing off a couple of salvos of missiles into the air, than rolled to her front and got up. She heard a yelp from above, and guessed she had either startled, or if she was lucky, winged the flier hassling her. A quick circle on the spot confirmed she and Barricade was surrounded, several of the vehicles having stopped, and were beginning to transform into their robot modes. Barricade was keeping some of them on their toes, but she could see they were outnumbered and outgunned, confronted by multiple opponents, some of whom were larger than either she or Barricade, and who seemed to be spoiling for a fight.

She flexed her hands, deploying her arm blades and made sure her shoulder cannons were re-armed, before baring her teeth as she looked again over those closing in on them. Outnumbered and outgunned or not, she wasn't going down without doing some damage herself.

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The searchers, both Autobot and Decepticon, who were searching for Barricade and Sam, were jolted out of whatever they were doing by a sudden burst, on all frequencies, of radio signals. Starscream and Optimus also got com signals, but they were somewhat garbled. Enough got through however that they could all piece together what was happening : Sam and Barricade were being attacked, and the situation was bad enough that Barricade was broadcasting for assistance in all available frequencies. Unfortunately the interference was so bad that they could get no details of location, suggesting a jamming field was being used by the assailant or assailants. It wasn't long before the interference worsened, suggesting the jamming field had been powered up.

Before Optimus or anyone else could give any orders, three of the Seekers went screaming past overhead, from several different directions, but all heading in the same general direction, and also climbing to gain height. To Optimus, it suggested that either the Seekers had managed to work out more than he had, or that they could see something from their elevation that the ground based searchers couldn't, and may have been getting higher in order to see further without being detected.

'Follow them,' he sent to all the ground based searchers, before turning a little and moving off himself as fast as he dared on the uneven desert floor.

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As Sam dodged her own missiles briefly, she reflected ruefully that she should remember basic physics, more specifically that what goes up must come down. The flier seemed to have stopped attacking for now, so she focused on the mechs ahead of her.

Most seemed to be holding back, assessing the situation, and probably working out how to approach her in light of her weapons, and she wished now she hadn't shown her hand so early. Unpredictability was an advantage, and perhaps she had utilised her blades as threat-aggression, but in this situation, keeping them concealed until needed might have been wiser. However, it was no good regretting what was done, so she had to think thorough what surprises she still had, and found herself, not for the first time, wishing she'd had those knuckle spikes installed.

One of the larger mechs was approaching, who looked like some bizarre amalgamation of old-time steam train and delta-winged flying type. He was at least three times her height, but she figured that his size must give him considerable inertia, and slowly backed off three steps, before darting to one side, drawing back her arm, and leaping up.

She figured she didn't have the knuckle spikes, nor the reach to hit his face, but hoped that all bipeds had certain weak spots in common. This was one of the areas Barricade had drawn her attention to in training, and she put everything into this punch, which landed exactly where she hoped it would, before her opponent could move to avoid it. Her fist landed on the side on his knee, where Barricade said most mechs had less armour, and she saw the force of her strike bend the metal.

It had the desired effect: the mech let out a cry and toppled towards her, so she dodged and rolled to the side, making sure it was towards his back, before converting back to vehicle form and heading away from there as fast as she could. She hoped Barricade would approve, she was still following his last given order, which was to run.

She heard transformation sounds behind her, resisted the temptation to look, and just put her pedal down, heading away from them as fast as she could. A couple of strikes landing nearby suggested that the flier was back, and she began jinking and dodging, deciding what move to use just before she made it, increasing the unpredictability, and actually thought she'd make it, until four fliers, - what looked like three jets and a helicopter - shot overhead, transformed, and dropped down, blocking her path.

She slid to a stop, taking a second to take in the ground pursuit behind her, before turning her attention back to those ahead of her, of whom two had taken their robot forms, and two who had gone back into aircraft alt mode, ready to shoot at her from the air or otherwise impede her attempts to flee. She converted back to robot mode, seeing little point in keeping herself in alt-mode.

"Come with us quietly, it'll make things easier and less painful for you," one of them cried. Although Sam couldn't tell which one, as she saw no mouth movements, she suspected it was one of those who had resumed their aerial vehicular form. "Resistance will just result in us subduing and capturing you anyway. You're outnumbered, and it's just a matter of time, which we have more of than you do!"

"Over my dead body!" Sam shouted back, feinting to one side and then dodging back.

"You're far too useful to us alive to allow that, but co-operation would make things less painful, and potentially much more pleasant for you," said someone from behind. As Sam turned to look, one of the fliers fired by her side, and though it missed hitting her, the explosions' force unbalanced her and threw her back towards the unknown speaker. As she tried to recover from the unexpected fall, she felt her upper arms gripped, and unshuttered her optics to find herself being lifted by a terrifying mech who was all purple, and whose whole head appeared to be one blood-red optic in an elongated hexagonal socket. He lifted her effortlessly, holding her up and out at arms length, which was far enough that none of her kicks could connect with the monstrosity. A voice came from somewhere in it's - his? - body.

"Swindle's logic is sound," the faceless mech intoned in a voice devoid of any form of emotion. Sam found her powerlessness against this faceless one terrifying, and then instead of freezing, her mind threw up potential options. Most she discarded, but one was possible. She realised that she had one chance with this, but it was the only workable one; if this failed, she was out of options. Being careful not to betray her intentions, she allowed herself to go rigid in his grip, before turning her headlights on at full beam, aimed directly into the centre point of that huge optic.

The loosening of the grip on her arms was small, but enough that when Sam threw all her energy into twisting her body, she succeeded in breaking free as the big mech was distracted by the temporary blindness and after images. Sam hit the ground, staggered, and ran, managing to avoid the fliers, who seemed to have thought it was over and had relaxed. She ran, but heard pursuit, dodged, transformed into car form and revved off, before being knocked off her wheels by another blast from one of the fliers. She transformed back into robot form as she rolled, and scrambled to her feet as a big black mech who bore a passing resemblance to Optimus grabbed for her and almost managed to catch her, but her size and speed were an asset in this situation. He tried grabbing for her again, and again she dodged, but she suspected while he was distracting her that the others were taking advantage of her distraction to surround her again. She didn't dare check, the black mech was slow but his very size gave him a frightening reach that she had to concentrate on avoiding. If she had to continue this for long, she would quickly tire.

There was a sudden revving of engines, and to her surprise she saw Barricade, in car form, accelerate, and then go into a slide, his rear striking the black mech's feet, and knocking him off balance. Sam took advantage of this, leaping up to avoid the mech's falling body, but landing on top of him, and fleeing along his body and leaping off to head back the way she had come. Barricade managed to turn and for a heart-stopping moment she thought he was throwing his lot in with his old ex-comrades as he drew level with her, until he shouted to her "Jump on!"

She did not hesitate, doing just that, landing on his roof, one foot ahead of his light bar and one behind, and as Barricade let down his front windows a few inches, she leaned forwards to slip her fingers in the space, crouching low and hanging on to his roof as he took a risk on the uneven ground, accelerating to his full speed of 220mph.

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Optimus was soon joined by four of the other search teams, and a few miles on they were joined by the rest. They could communicate over a short range, with each other, if they were within a few metres of each other, but no communications outside that range coming in were understandable; they was a mixture of indecipherable garbled sounds and static, and Optimus could only assume it was the same for signals he would send with a destination beyond those few metres. This suggested the use of a signal jammer, which was bad news. The good news was that if they were being affected by it, the source could not be too far away from where they were: they were headed in the right direction,

"Mirage, scout ahead and see if you can see anything. Use your disrupter, drive for five minutes, and return if you see nothing," he said. The blue and white spy flashed his lights before accelerating and fading out.

It was less than five minutes when Optimus spotted flashing lights. At first he thought they were combat flashes, and worried he'd sent Mirage into a major combat situation, but he soon noticed a pattern to the lights.

"Optimus Prime, Sir?" Cliffjumper said. "Bumblebee says he thinks it's Mirage, and he's using his lights to send a message in an Earth language called Morse code. The message reads 'fighting ahead, waiting downslope to meet, don't reply, avoid detection.'"

"Let's not keep him waiting," Optimus replied, and sent the order to all.

'Let's get to Mirage, who's the source of those lights, and then go kick some tailpipe. Let's rescue Sam, and Barricade, if he's still with us. Roll out, everyone!"

Optimus kept his biggest concerns to himself : was Sam still there? Was she injured, or even dead, or was she a prisoner? If so, had she already been removed from the area by her captors?Was Barricade their friend or foe? He also found himself wondering that having gone ahead, where were the Command Trine and Thrust? Why had Mirage not mentioned them? Where was their air support?

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"I need to slow down, we're going the wrong direction," Barricade told Sam "but we don't want them to realise that." He stopped talking as the helicopter and one of the jets overflow them and began to turn. "They will want to herd us back towards their friends back there, and we need to let them think they've succeeded, until we make our break to get beyond their perimeter again. If we can get far enough to escape the communications dampening field, with none of them between the Autobots and us, we might have a chance. I'm also going to be screaming for backup on the Police radio, any backup would be welcome now."

Sam was about to question the wisdom of bringing fragile, clueless humans into the mix, but let the thought go at the sound of laser fire. She flinched as the jets ahead fired at the ground ahead of them, and Barricade swerved to avoid them, describing a loose V as he went, not quite back the way they had come, racing to one side. "When I slow, jump off and move slightly away, but don't let them separate us if you can help it. We need to divide the two behind us, give them two targets, but you must be ready to jump back on board when I give the word."

"Right," Sam breathed, then blinked as the helicopter and then the jet fired again, both on Barricade's right, trying to turn the V into a U. "Scrap, they're trying to move us in," Sam muttered.

"Jump off on the right, Sam, they'll pursue you, I'll run some interference and slow them up. When you get off, convert to car form and flee, bearing right as much as you can. Maybe we can slip past the end of their line if we're fast enough."

"Got it," Sam replied, and as Barricade slowed, jumped forward and up off the Police cruiser's roof, narrowly avoiding being skewered by a missile fired by the helicopter in the process. "Shit!" Sam said, reverting back to a human curse, and belatedly remembering to change from robot to car, something she'd never attempted mid-air before.

She landed on two wheels, and for a moment thought she was going to end up on her side or roof, but the other two wheels came down and she took off, bearing right as Barricade had instructed. She gave into temptation to check her rear view mirrors to see Barricade had converted to robot and was distracting both of their pursuers with his own missiles. She was tempted to turn back into robot form herself, and use her own shoulder missiles against them, but against moving airborne targets at an increasing distance would be chancey, and she suspected this was just a distraction to give her time to flee. He had instructed her to flee and bear right, and that is what she was going to do.

The sound of approaching chopper blades behind her told her whatever distraction he'd provided was over, and another glance into her rear view mirror showed the helicopter pursuing, while the jet appeared to be trying to deal with Barricade. She focused her attention forwards, and saw some of the ground-based New Decepticons were driving towards her intended exit point, intending to cut her off. For a moment she warred internally - should she just try and outrun them and get past them, or dodge about to confuse the helo on her tail? She quickly jinked left, then right again, before flooring her pedal and racing to get past the New Decepticon ground forces.

It wasn't a laser blast or shell that sent her rolling, but a small boulder that she ran up over. As she spun, she again changed back to robot form, picking herself up as soon as she was able to, and looking ahead. She found herself looking at the copter, who had his gun aimed directly at her, and was hovering, ready to head her off whichever way she went. Behind him, the line of grounder mechs were transforming into their robot modes, spreading out to block any attempts to escape. Behind her she heard the jet approaching, and a quick look confirmed that the same plane, and two of the other New Decepticon fliers, were coming down behind her, hovering in robot form, to cut off her retreat.

She adopted a fighting stance, arms up, hands fisted, and deployed her shoulder cannons and her arm blades. Maybe she could no longer run, but she could still put up some kind of a fight.


End file.
